Common-sense Country

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Common-Sense
Country.

BY

L. S. BEVINGTON

> •<

LONDON :

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Common-Sense Country.

-^-♦-^

There was a country where Common-sense had
somehow got the upper hand. In that country sense
was as common as lunacy is in a madhouse. There
was a place for everything, and everything was either
in that place, or else was on the direct way there — the
sliortest way, the easiest way, the cheapest way. In
that country everybody was brought up with the notion
that the simplest plan in everything served everybody's
turn best, even the clever people's ; and it was taken
as a matter of course that if things did not go wrong
people wouldn't. They read in their books of history
and comparative sociology that in countries were things
do go wrong, people go wrong too, in the blind, blun-
dering attempt to straighten things back a bit. But in
Common-sense Country it was always said when things
went wrong that there had been some nonsense — that is,
empty word-play — in the heads or habits of the people,
which had diverted attention from realities, and caused
the people to let things wander out of the way.

In Common-sense Country all the commodities and
goods, all the instruments, utensils, and appliances — •
in short, all the ^' things " — had very simple and un-
adventurous biographies, and, if they could have
spoken, they would not have had much harrowing in-
formation to impart about the ravages of their tissues
and textures caused by moth and rust, nor yet of

4 Commo)L-8cnse Country.

vicissitudes incurred at the hands of thieves breaking
through to steaL " I was needed : I was made : I was
conveyed : I was apphed : I was consumed." That
would have summed up the history of a thing in the
country where things went right : only five short
chapters. Ixi most countries, of course^ ail sorts of
distressing and distracting other chapters intervene.
Thus : " I was coveted : I w^as done without : I was
lied for : I w^as hated for : I was speculated in : I was
adulterated : I was advertised . I was legislated about :
I was sold (and my buyer with me) : I was squandered :
I was hoarded : I w^as quarrelled over : I was fought
for : I was burgled : 1 was bombed."

000 —

In Common-sense Country tliere was a jol) for every-
one, and everyone w^as merrily, ardently, or placidly
doing that job. No one was doing mere " busiiiess "
and calling it work. No one was doing real work and
feeling it " toil ". Dull jobs were done in sliort spelis
by an immense number of people ; delightful jobs were
worked at ior the pleasure of the thing, in longer spells,
and by a fewer number ot people. It fell out so,
naturally, and because of common sense ; nobody had
to be at the trouble of enforcing the arrangement, 'i he
man with the dullest or most fatiguing job, as a matter
of course, got the longest leisure for re-creation of his
naturally flagging zest for the job. Tbe man with the
pleasureable and healthy job hardly know leisure from
job. The kindliest and most able-bodied and jolHest of
the j^eople had comnjon-sense reasons for attending to
the least appetizing tasks. Everybody knew they want-
ed doing ; and these kindly, vigorous, and jolly folks
^vere those who cared most about getting them done,
and cared least about minor disagreeables. They also
liked tbe peculiar way in which other people shook
liands with them for it, and more than made it good
to them in the way of respect and hospitality wherever
they w^nt.

Common-sense Country. 5

You never saw any feet without shoes in cold weather
in Common-sense Country. And you never saw any
shoes heaped up thousands thick in warehouses with
no feet to put into them. Common-sense citizens had
grave objections, not only to cold, discomfort, and
disease, but also grave objections to the enormous
expense of thought, time, material, and goodwill,
necessarily involved in any and every measure for keep-
ing empty shoes warm indoors, and human feet cold
outside in the street. You never came to a place in
any Common-sense city where, by turning your head to
the right, you could see one horn of a dilemma in the
shape of a lot of grain or fish being destroyed on the
lunatic excuse that it could not be sold for more than
it cost, while by turning your head to the left the
other horn of the dilemma became visible in the shape
of men and women (with their children) hungry, wor-
ried, and constantly at their wits' end, only because
they could not buy back the comestibles they had
ploughed, reaped, milled, fished, and otherwise laboured
to bring within human reach.

-000 —

In Common-sense Country there were no jerry built
houses, because people could not see any reason for
making insecure and unhealthy dwellings. There were
no ground landlords to make it disadvantageous to any
builder to build honestly ; no builders so hard pressed,
therefore, that they were obliged to cause the masons
to scamp work, use limeless mortar, or unseasoned
wood. No builder or mason, moreover, had (in the
name of common-sense) any object whatever in view so
immediately as the supplying of buildings wanted for
use. He built houses for bakers, clothiers, artists, and
all sorts of other useful persons ; and these lived in the
houses and produced food, clothing, works of art, and
all sorts of other useful things for the builder in
exchange.

6 Common-sense Coiintnj,

There was no waste of any energy or of any talent in
Common-sense Country. There were no churches and
temples made with hands ; because hands had better
things to do than build prisons to shut up souls in.
Also because in strict common sense the sky was holy
enough to " sit under," and even to sing spiritual songs
under. Besides, Common-senseites had discovered that
you could not get the sun and fixed stars and all their
lesser lights into the biggest of temples ever made with
hands. In Common-sense Country people liked day-
light for their minds and morals as well as for their
bodies ; and found it cheapest in the long run.

-000-

There were next to no shipwrecks on the coasts of
Common-sense Country ; no one raced any ships to
port in all weathers for the nonsensical reason of get-
ting in before other ships. People on shore could
always afford to wait a day or so for the weather, better
than they could afford to kill men, sink ships, and spoil
cargoes through running amuck at nature's meteor-
ological arrangements. It did not matter a jot to any
one which ship got in first, since all ships were full of
supplies, and sure to drop in, in natural order, as fast
as needed. What sense of hurry there was, founded of
course on experience of the inconvenience of waiting,
led to all possible improvements iu the art and science
of ship-building and engine-building, so that wind-and-
wave difficulties had been reduced to a minimum. So
there was no colliding in fogs, no bursting of boilers, no
over-lading, and no un-seaworthy craft ; also no
"Lloyd's" agencies, to speculate on anyone's want of
common-sense, and to live as parasites on the low
moral vitality of the public, making profit at its expense.
When folk talked of 'insuring" in that country, they
always meant making as sure as possible against chances
of mishap. To insure a ship was to build her well, fit
her well, man her well, to steer clear of shoals, and
keep her in sound repair. Likewise with the insurance

Common-sense Country, 1

of hoiises. And to insure your life, you had only to
eat, drink, and clothe yourself on hygienic principles, to
avoid the indolence or the over-taxing of any of your
faculties, and to act fairly by every one of your fellow-
creatures with whom you had to do. In common-
sense language, insuring your life or property never
meant to make it worth anyone's while to destroy either
one or the other.

— ooo —

No visible teacher taught common-sense in that
country. Children were born with it ready-made. It lay
in their human nature. It taught itself. It '^growed"
(like Topsy) because neither * 'business" nor ''policy"
existed to check or warp it — indeed neither the policy
of business nor the business of policy were known at
all, except as queer, sad, old superstitions, suffered-
through and done with ages ago, during the time when
human generations were paying a big price in the purga-
tory of civilization, for the privilege of having beaten
other creatures in the dangerous matter of language.
Children in Common-sense Country were never taught
to be "wise and prudent," because that was the way to
prevent anything of any interest or beauty or high im-
port from being "revealed," Their little, honest,
ignorant, simple questions received honest, accurate,
and simple answers, in language which they could un-
derstand, and which they never needed to unlearn after-
wards. And this alike on all subjects. Every young
man and young woman grew up with as much common-
sense in his or her head or expectations as the elders
could help them to. And each young man or young
woman went on from a common-sense starting point to
use his or her faculties as individual endowment sug-
gested, so that each generation kept on fearlessly add-
ing to real knowledge by experimenting in new direc-
tions as common-sense prompted ; while the elders loved
to have it so, and felt rewarded for their good faith to
the children, and were sometimes in their own turn
listeners, questioners, learners.

8 Common-sense Country,

Common-sense citizens never said "Time is money/'
They said that money-minting, money-managing, and
money-protecting entail endless waste of time and
trouble ; that they are an abuse of human faculty, re-
sulting in a great deal of death — bodily, intellectual,
moral, and spiritual. Also it was said these and like
employments were as nonsensical in their objects as
they were vicious in their effects. Money in Common-
sense Country had no meaning, any more than it has
in a beehive. No one said "Money is power." Some-
times it was said " Money is weakness." That was
when Common-senseites were speaking of the doings
and miseries of the inhabitants of Lunatic Land. (By
the way, the word used was not money but mammon.)
One objection they had to money, beyond its non-
sensicalness, was its tendency — in proportion to the
degree of its accumulation in a man's hand — to sap
away his "soul," his moral individuality, his character.
They said, " What can it profit a man to lose his soul,
and become a moral paralytic?" They observed also
that wherever in Lunatic Land mammon had accumu-
lated in a man's hand, it had a tendency to put into his
other hand a sceptre, a truncheon, a gatling gun, or
some other preposterous implement, making of that
moral paralytic a lord over two, or five, or ten cities, or
markets, or communities — as the case might be.

— ooo —

As there was no manjmon, there were none of those
dismal things which are eternal essentials where mam-
mon reigns. There were no arsenals, no armies, no
police, no spies : no banks, no prisons, no poorhouses :
no brothels, no divorce courts, no nunneries, no con-
fessionals : no "rings," no strikes, no infernal machines,
no gallows. Common-sense found no sort of use in any
of these queer things. Common-sense knew by hear-
say that mammon could not reign without them ; but
then common sense found no reason whatever for put-
ting up with mammon, or paying its expenses.

Comnioft-seJise Coiintrf/. 9

There were many stores and depots where anyone
who wanted anything for wear, or consumption, or in-
struction, or pleasure, or any other use, could go, or
send and get it, or get it made. He never had to ask
'' What's the damage ?" because in Common-sense
Country damage was objected to. Everyone knew that
no one had got what he did not want, because nobody
was 80 insane as to cumber himself with the custody of
anything that was of no use or pleasure to him ; so that
to ask him to give up what was of direct iise or pleasure to
him would damage him. No one was ^hort of anythijig,
because the world is very fruitful, and human beings are
very numerous, very ingenious, and very industrious,
and are able and eager to make it more and more fruit-
hil. Wealth in Common-sense Country increased even
faster than the popuhition, so that there was more
leisure for every new generation born. Whatever was
not of direct use to the individuals who produced it, it
was to the convenience of these individuals to place in
care, and outside custody altogether, so that those to
whom it was not superfluous might choose their own
time and put it to their own uses. It is only in Lunatic
Land that everybody (willingly or not) makes a practice
ot lining everybody else for the privilege of living
alongside of him on the same planet. It takes a here-
ditary lunatic of nuiny generations' standing to go
shamming about in the roundabout, nonsensically solemn
elfort to convert man's natural houje into a penal colony,
by means of a cunningly devised system of fines all
round for being alive and active and wanting to stop so.

-000-

In Common-sense Country there were born ninety-
five per cent, fewer idiots, cripples, and otherwise afflic-
ted mortals than are born elsewhere. The few there
were, were not felt as a burden ; for those of tender
hearts found a natural pleasure in doing what could be
done to make life toleral)le for these sad and ever
diminishing exceptions ; and of course they were no

10 Cjtninon .sc/i.'ie C<ii/nfrf/.

expense in a land of plenty, where access was Free to
whatever was wanted, without money and without price.

-GOO-

In Common-sense Country words were true, and
purposes single ; even newspapers expressed real opin-
ions, and conveyed real information ; fun abounded,
and nobody preached. Every shade of mdividuality
Nvas respected and made welcome, variety being sug-
gestive as well as interesting. No one wheedled, no
one canted, no one flattered, or equivocated, or slan-
dered ; because none of these were necessary expedients.
There was never anything to fear from either honesty
or generosity in that land. People could have food,
friends, fun, and freedom without little abject servilities.
Every individual was, as a matter of course, left per-
fectly free on his capable side, while being courteously
and gladly aided, by custom and common consent, on
his weak side. So that there was nothing to prevent
his voluntarily and naturally making common cause
with others in the overcoming of common difficulties,
and in the acquirement, production, and distribution of

all good things.

-000-

There was no schism in that country, because there
was no Church. There was a great deal of religion,
because Common-senseites had time to try their best
powers of life and mind on everything, and the more
they knew, the deeper depths of sheer wonderfulness did
they find beneath the new-won knowledge. They found
that life, love, liberty, peace, progress, and everything
worth having came as the reward of adherence to certain
inexorable, universal laws, inherent in everything ;
laws in which there was no variableness, nor shadow of
turning ; and also no respect of persons. They had
the intensest interest and zest in getting hold of these
laws, and in falling in with them as fast as they became
visible ; and they never dreamt of making cheap and
nasty substitutes for laws in places or cases where none

Covi m nn-sejise Conn fry.

appeared of their own accord. As neither the igno-
rance nor superstition of their fellows served anyone's
turn in a coanti y where citizens were free and trusted
one another, no people in hlack were kept to p^irvey
either the one or the other, not even to women or to
the little children. All black arts were forgotten, and
not missed. On the other hand Common-sense Country
was rich in prophets, or poets, of the variety known as
^' born not made."

-OOO-

There was no sedition, because there was no State.
Instead, there was ^\'^\^ where a most beautiful order;
for common-sense, left to itself, saw no use in a public
njuddle, or in a private scramble ; such as exists every-
where and all the while in Lunatic Land. It was more-
over found that there were a thousand simpler, cheaper,
and surer (because more natural) ways of forestalling
anl discouraging any atavistic aggressiveness on the
part of individuals, than bribing a number of strangers
beforehand to be in readiness to retahate by proxy. ^

-000 —

There w^as no swindhng because there was no compe-
tition. Instead, there was endless emulation. The
results of doing anything wtII, usefull}', or admirably
were wdiolly pleasant. The social results of doing any
thing that wanted doing better and more easily and
swdftly than it had been done before, were so exception-
ally pleasant that all the most energetic and able people
aspired and endeavouied to experience those results at
first hand. No man-imposed restriction thwarted or
impeded any experiment, and in the end the commu-
nity learnt something useful by every mistake made.
General goodwill and prosperity were immense ; because
there were no reasons at all for tricking anybody — quite
the reverse.

000

Human nature w^as never made a butt for satire, or a
subject of regret, in Common-sense Country. No mud,

12 Cin)uno}i-iien>ie CofUitrfj.

no rotten eggs, no printers' ink were thrown at it. No
one made a "Jiving" by undertaking to convince others
of their unsuspected depravity, witJi promise of cure
for it in exchange for cash down and vows of allegiance.
No one made any name or fame for himself by under-
taking to keep human nature in others in order, by
means of penal and restrictive regulations invented and
iiuposed by human nature in himself or his set. Com-
mon-senseites saw^ that human nature was a branch of
nature at laige, and that to divide it against itself was
the surest way to get it out of gear. Whenever a pro-
clivity was found to be universal amongst humans,
connnon-sense put the natural interpretation on the fact,
and respected the proclivity, however snnerficially in-
convenient in minor respects or exceptional cases. They
respected io as due to some instinct, implanted and de-
veloped by the law of Lifewardness, and which it was
therefore dangerous and disastrous systematically to
nullify and oppose. Their endeavour was, instead, to
become better acquainted with it.

The great pleasure of trustful, unchecked sympath}^,
and of spontaneous glowing kindlniess, wavS enjoyed
nowhere to such a degree as in Common-sense Country.
The old people, the little children, the animals and
birds had a happy time of it ; and there was free ex-
change of friendship and affection between the dumb
and the human sharers of earthly life. And in the
healthy, breathable, moral atmosphere of habitual good
faith, fearless thinking, true speech, and sincere dealing
which (by dint of simple good sense) people had gra-
dually instituted, the necessary love of self, which takes
such crude forms in Lunatic Land, had overflowed at
every point, and become indistinguishable from the
delicious, zest-giving, and inexhaustible pleasure of love
for those around.

There was Peace in Common-sense Country, and
Goodwill among men ; and Happiness and Fullness of
Life had become the Natural Order of the day.

Printed by James Tochatti, at 60, Grove Park Terrace, Chiswick, W